“The globe?”
“Yes. And I’m going to do it in less than eighty days!”
A raucous cheer followed by a round of clapping filled the room. Servers hooted and hollered, clapped and whistled. Katie’s heart pounded and she was powerless to stem the grin that spread across her face like a wildfire spread across the prairie. It was almost as though the people were clapping for her too. The feeling was indescribable in Amish terms, but in the world of the English, it could be called addicting.
***
“The train will be arriving shortly, Miss Bly.” A waiter carrying a silver-domed dish stood timidly beside their table, as though he stood in the company of royalty. “You and your entourage will be the only passengers, just as the newspaper requested. You have just enough time to enjoy your roast duck.”
Nellie nodded, unaffected by the reverence displayed in her presence. “Perfect, thank you, sir. Katie, won’t you share this duck with me? There is always so much food and I never eat it all.”
Katie removed her napkin from her plate as Nellie sliced the aromatic duck in half. For the first time since leaving Gasthof, her stomach growled. She licked her lips. “It’s very kind of you to share your dinner with me.”
“But of course. You’re my guest.” Sitting back, Nellie swiped her napkin off the table and let it fall across her lap in one swift, clean motion. “Now, push your plate over here.”
Katie did as she was told, all the while studying the dark-haired young woman who had proven to be so kind. Questions swirled in her mind, bumping into each other and trying to tumble through her lips. Her mother’s voice, warning against nosiness, did little to stop their swirling. She sucked in her bottom lip and tried to stem her tongue as Nellie slid the steaming duck onto her empty dish. But as it usually did, Katie’s curiosity won out.
“Nellie, when you introduced yourself earlier, you said you were Nellie Bly, the woman who spent ten days in a madhouse.” Katie leaned forward. “What is a madhouse?”
Nellie froze, her arched eyebrows high on her blemish-free forehead. After only a moment’s hesitation, a slow smile spread across her face and she sat her silverware down. “In the English world, Katie, sometimes people send others into places called asylums because they are sick.”
Katie’s eyes widened. “I thought the English sent their sick to places called doctors?”
Nellie stabbed a bite of duck with her fork. “Suppose it depends on the type of sickness. And how much family they have to take care of them and see that they’re treated well.”
Katie did as she saw Nellie do. The duck was juicy when she took the first bite, and the greens that the waiter scooped from a cut-glass bowl looked inviting from the side of her plate. “What do you mean, type?”
“Well,” Nellie continued, “a woman having a baby or a man needing surgery might go to a hospital. While someone who thinks differently, is insane, or has no family or money might go to a madhouse.” Nellie looked thoughtful. “Well, at least that’s how it is supposed to work.”
“You don’t look insane, or without family or money.”
“You’re right, Katie. It was a delicate and difficult mission.” Nellie took another bite and waved for the waiter. “Would you like to hear about it?”
Katie took another bite as the waiter appeared with his silver-domed dish and took away Nellie’s plate, only half empty.
In the distance, the train’s whistle called into the falling night with an empty echo that sent shivers down Katie’s spine.
Is this what happens before an adventure?
Katie swallowed hard, but the tightening in her throat wouldn’t be budged.
Maybe.
She kneaded her clammy hands in her lap. Or is this fear? Probably.
The fact she would have to make a life-changing decision, and soon, was nearby. Still unseen, but chugging relentlessly down the tracks toward her.
“Katie? Katie Knepp?”
Katie shook her head and looked at Nellie, who peered across the table with wide, wondering eyes.
“Are you alright, love?”
She licked her lips, but it didn’t do any good. They were much to dry. “Yes, I am—I’m fine.”
“Would you like to hear about life in a madhouse while you enjoy your duck dinner?”
Katie smiled. “I would love to hear about it.”
A few white-coated waiters appeared from the shadows as Nellie sat back in her chair. “It was easy to have myself committed, and the process, as a whole, didn’t take much time at all.”
Katie laid her silverware across her plate carefully and leaned forward.
“All I had to do was act out of sorts in public.”
“Out of sorts?” A waiter’s quiet voice ventured. “You mean attacking people without cause?”
Nellie smiled. “No. Never violent, though that would have worked, I’m certain. But for me, I acted different. Simply different.” She ticked her fingers as she spoke. “Talking to myself. Not remembering my name. Claiming to be from a different country. Speaking a different language.”
The brown-skinned waiter shifted his weight and looked down.
Katie spoke. “Where did you pretend to be from, Nellie?”
“I sprinkled my answers with Spanish in my countless identical interviews. I told them I was from Cuba.”
Katie nodded, though she had no idea where Cuba was.
“On the ride across the ocean from the hospital in New York where they deemed me hopelessly insane, to the island where the asylum was located, the emotion aboard lacks proper description.”
Noises in the depot dining room died off, as though a plague swept through without warning. Katie held her breath.
“Hopeless,” Nellie whispered. “The bed where they forced the invalids to lie and endure the trip...rancid. Terror as the mainland grew small and the island grew larger. The women aboard knew they would never leave, and if my editor hadn’t arranged for my release in ten days, I would have been chilled with hopeless terror too.”
“What happened when you arrived?”
“There were no carriages to meet us. Now, we were no longer patients. We were prisoners. Hopeless, helpless, and at the mercy of people who acted as though they hated us.” Nelly glanced from face to eager face before she continued. “We walked from the dock to the asylum. When the stench hit us...”
Against all her raising, Katie interrupted Nellie. “The asylum had a stench about it?”
“No. The stench was from the kitchen.”
As if on cue, someone’s stomach rumbled.
Nellie continued, her voice taking on a somber tone. “What they served was not food. Buttered bread and tea.”
“That doesn’t sound too terrible.”
Nellie smiled a tight smile. “Despite not having anything else to eat for three days, I couldn’t eat it. The tea...was pink water.”
